In person For the v Mr I Aimufua, Litigation Consultant — 2024

The claimant was employed by Barminster Investments Limited t/a Barminster Property Services from 24 October 2016 until he was summarily dismissed on 12 February 2024. The respondent initially gave incompetence-related reasons in its response, but the tribunal found that the real reason for dismissal was conduct arising from events on 12 January 2024, when the claimant and Mr Durojaiye argued about an email from landlord JG and the claimant called Mr Durojaiye a liar and reset the office phone to factory settings.

The tribunal preferred Mr Durojaiye’s account where the evidence differed. It accepted that the respondent genuinely believed the claimant had said to JG that tenants had been placed in a property without the reference checks having been completed, and that it also had reasonable grounds for believing the claimant had called Mr Durojaiye a liar and reset the phone. The tribunal noted that the claimant was the only other employee, so there was nobody else who could have been the source of the information in JG’s email, and it rejected the claimant’s suggestion that JG had invented the allegation as a negotiating tactic.

Although no disciplinary procedure was followed, the tribunal held that this was an exceptional case in which a procedure would have been futile. The relevant matters occurred entirely between the claimant and Mr Durojaiye, there were no other witnesses, the only potentially relevant document was JG’s email, and the respondent was a very small business with no other employee who could have carried out a disciplinary process. The tribunal also noted that the claimant had an opportunity the next day to apologise and seek to retain his job.

The tribunal concluded that Mr Durojaiye was reasonably entitled to regard the claimant’s conduct as gross misconduct that had broken the relationship of trust and confidence between them. It held that dismissal was within the band of reasonable responses open to a reasonable employer in the circumstances, and the claim of unfair dismissal was dismissed.